Arizona Cardinals: Evaluating the pros and cons of keeping Josh Rosen

Pro: His intelligence is a perfect fit for the Air Raid

Despite having the name ‘Air Raid’, Kliff Kingsbury’s offense isn’t based around have a player with a world-beating arm that can shotput the ball 60 yards. Rather, it’s about having a shot-caller that knows how to operate an offense filled with multiple checks and adjustments on the fly. Luckily, Josh Rosen has the brain and football intelligence to do so.

Yes, Rosen has fantastic mechanics, and that will be addressed later, but that’s not the sole reason why he drafted in the first round. One of his top traits was that he was billed as a ‘pro-ready’ passer with the ability to quickly process what the defense was doing and an understanding of how to process his reads.

Rosen’s ability to manipulate a defense is also a plus. He has a knack for looking safeties off the ball and use a pump fake to his advantage. Dan Orlovsky, a 12-year NFL quarterback, explains that well in the clip below via his Twitter.

And while Rosen wasn’t groomed in a shotgun-heavy offense while at UCLA, I believe he has a style of play and brain capable or thriving under an offense that prioritizes quickly reading the field and going through your options within three seconds of the snap. Although, it might take Rosen some time to get used to, as he is known as a pro-style quarterback.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to see that Rosen in year one of his Cardinals. The offense Rosen played under was fairly simple. With many timing based routes and plays not made to beat a specific coverage, Rosen was unable to show off just how quick he can process leverage. When they did run plays that were less generic, the line often failed to buy him any sort of time.